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Fomdi Turns One Today!
February 13th, 2007
It is hard to believe one year ago today Fomdi was launched, the Internet’s search engine for captioned movies.
In its first year, Fomdi found 359,893 captioned movies.
Fomdi visitors searched for captioned movies 119,215 times, averaging almost 10,000 times a month. These visitors searched for captioned movies using more than 6,000 different zipcodes. That’s practically every corner of the United States.
Seeing that Fomdi, on average, found 3 movies per search, captioned movies have come a long way. They are more available, both in theaters and titles. Rochester, NY, where I attended Rochester Institute of Technology, was one of the earlier cities which offered captioned movies. I remember the choices being rather limited, to one theater and one movie title. However, it was a blessing considering we did not have any before then.
Now we have tens of movies and theaters to choose from in many major cities. We’re not quite on equal footing as the hearing audience, but it’s certainly better than nothing. I know there are a number of people out there still fighting for more and better access to all and for all.
While Fomdi searches thousands of theaters, not all are found. The reason isn’t within Fomdi’s reach or capability. Theaters need to do a better job of reporting captioned movies. Often times, theaters regularly show captioned films, but don’t do their part of sharing these showtimes with the appropriate channels. As a result, those showtimes are being missed by the huge audience Fomdi draws. 4,000 to 5,000 monthly unique visitors flock to Fomdi to get their captioned movie listings.
I would like to celebrate Fomdi’s part in bringing access to more Americans. Happy birthday, Fomdi!
Matt Ellis | February 13th, 2007 @ 7:34 am
Tayler, thank you for making Fomdi happen! I enjoy it wholeheartedly. Truly, a great idea!
Peachlady | February 13th, 2007 @ 8:25 am
Thank you for this useful tool! Where is a birthday cake or candle to go with Fomdi?
D | February 13th, 2007 @ 8:54 am
Congrats. I have been using Fomdi weekly and find it very useful. I always pass on the website to any eager deaf/hh movie goer.
Just a suggestion: if you wanted to upgrade Fomdi, you could include which showed RearWindow and which showed LIVE captioning (maybe RSS feed from ohsoez.com?). Just an idea.
Again, congrats.
D
tayler | February 13th, 2007 @ 9:07 am
D,
These are the definitions as per the movie sites:
OC – Open Captioning
White letters burnt onto the film
CC – Closed Captioning
Rear Window (RWC)
To reduce confusion, Fomdi re-uses the terminology from the movie sites.
Shawn | February 13th, 2007 @ 9:38 am
correction in your blog….
Rochester Institute of Technology
tayler | February 13th, 2007 @ 10:00 am
Shawn, I mistyped that on purpose to see how many people wouldn’t notice. OK, maybe not.
Thanks for catching it and letting me know! Whoops!
Mr. Sandman | February 13th, 2007 @ 10:56 am
Happy birthday to one of many great ideas you’ve had! Thanks for your hard work and dedication.
Chris Sano | February 13th, 2007 @ 11:12 am
Very cool. My only suggestion would be to make Fomdi extensible so that other developers such as myself can create tools that leverage the service!
mishkazena | February 13th, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
Congrats, Tayler. You came up with so many clever ideas! This is very useful tool.
Grant W Laird Jr. | February 13th, 2007 @ 5:49 pm
Congrats!!
Vicki | February 16th, 2007 @ 8:07 am
happy birthday!
as im a regular fomdi visitor, i decided to check out movies in my area, 10603. to my dismay, it stopped collecting movies from Regal Cinemas’s New Rochelle theater as it’s been included in the search in the past. what can i do about this – approach the theater and ask them to include the OC movies into the proper channels or whatnots? thanks!
Keep up the good work!
benj | February 18th, 2007 @ 11:08 am
i love this feature and contribute to the tallying marks. thank you tayler, kudos.
Jody Kulchinsky | March 6th, 2007 @ 8:04 am
Thank you for providing this great service. I shall be looking the “super” fomdi one day.
Deepa | October 24th, 2008 @ 9:00 am
I love Fomdi, happy birthday to you, Fomdi.